June 5th

Good evening family and friends. How are things in your neck of the woods? I heard the weather is great in Oregon, so glad there was good weather for graduations. Hard to believe school is out down there, I'm sure the kids are all excited. Looking forward to spending time with the grandkids while school is out, I'm sure we can find something to do. I've seen ALOT of water lately but I still see a trip to the beach for sure. Oh and there's always shopping to do. Byron and I did some shopping for gifts when he was here but that was only one store, I'm losing my shopping mojo. And dare I say my desire to shop? Living on a boat in a very small space changes your attitude about stuff and obtaining more stuff. At least for now I'm pretty content with what I have. Although, (you knew that was coming) I will be leaving some of my clothes up here when I come home for a month so may need to add to the wardrobe a little bit. :-) Tonight I made sweet n sour chicken for dinner using the right recipe. The previous time I made it there wasn't enough sauce, well come to find out, there were two recipes in the Recipe Box and I made the wrong one. So anyways, today's was much better. Also had rice and stir fry veges. Now I'm trying to make spanish rice soup and I may have made it a tad too spicy. We'll see if they like it or toss it overboard. Me and my experiments. I have the chocolate pudding dessert so that will make up for the spicy soup. The weather is much better today. Calm with no wind. Still overcast but no rain so that makes it nice for the hunters. They are out there now searching the shoreline for that darn bear. Hope they get one tonight, that would make the rest of the trip relaxing. We might even head over to the Hot Springs if the bear hunt is successful early. One more thing on the shopping idea, I haven't had a chance to look for a new bracelet and I'm pretty sure there's room on my wrist for another one. Has to be just right though and have significance to Alaska and my time here. I tried to get Mark to give me one of his bear's claws but that was a no go. Maybe it was because I called them nails instead of claws. Picky, picky. Then I offered to paint the bear's nails and he poo-pooed that idea too. Ya try to be helpful and it doesn't get you anywhere. The crab pots are out so will check those tomorrow. Might be having crab tomorrow night, we'll see. I've decided that crab tastes okay, it's just alot of work to get the meat out of the shell. So I might have leftover chicken instead and leave the crab for the hunter and his wife. Brad doesn't care for crab either, he can have leftovers too. He's okay with that though. Just went and got all comfy, those that know me understand what I mean, especially the women. Guys just don't get it. Most women I know shed their bra as soon as they come through the door at the end of the day. It's just one of those things we do that signifies we have conquered what we set out to do for the day and we are now home for the evening. Plus we also pull out the sweatpants or yoga pants for additional comfort. Now I realize this isn't the attire men were used to back in our parents generation. A wife was expected to reapply her makeup, put on a clean dress and meet her man at the door with a gin and tonic. Can you see that happening now? hahahaha. Things have changed dramatically since then. If you are a wife that is home before the hubby, whether or not you were home all day or just got back from work, I'm pretty sure the makeup has already been scrubbed off, the clean dress is actually the sweatpants and one of his old t-shirts and the drink, well that's either a diet soda or ice tea for her. Plus, one of them has to start dinner in order to get everyone fed before sports practice, music lessons or school functions. It takes a team effort to rally the troops and see to it that the house is clean, the cars run, kids are acknowledged, work is attended and good, quality time is spent on each family member. A big order but I see it being accomplished by alot of young families everyday. I remember thinking as my boys were growing up, were we doing things right, did they get enough attention, were our priorities in the right place? I can honestly say that we screwed up alot of times and our boys probably felt the brunt of our bad decisions. But they have each grown up to be Godly men with big hearts, warm souls and hard working, only by the grace of God. I'm proud of each one of them, not because of what we did but because they have made their own decisions as adults to live positive lives with purpose and goals. And to think, I never really knew if I wanted kids when I was younger. In fact, after Travis was born and we put him in the car to bring him home as a newborn, we looked at each other and said, "now what do we do"? Bless his heart, he survived his childhood and became big brother to two more Johnson boys. I'm so blessed. Looking forward to some hugs from the oldest to the youngest of the entire family. Wow, so sorry, I got to yapping away and took way too much of your time. Thanks for sticking through to the end. Have a great evening......dj